CraigM
5454
I was referring to the entire entity, not a specific member of the crap collective.
This random reddit post sums up my reaction pretty well:
I keep pounding away at this and North American conservatives keep providing evidence I’m right almost every day. Conservatives are not good people, from the Trumps and Doug Fords at the top to the voters that send them to power, bad people all the way down. They’re a planetary threat with their climate change denial and a threat to democracy with the way they attack the rules and norms of the democratic process wherever they get power. Call me extreme in this view, that’s fine, I think I’m just the right amount of pissed the fuck off with them and I’m done using coddling language that shields them from the criticism of their actions.
It’s been the obvious truth for decades, but I’m just glad that people are beginning to realize the existential threat that every single Republican pol and voter represents to the rest of us.
Timex
5457
I find this kind of stuff to be some of the most offensive crap. It’s exactly the kind of thing that made me start this thread.
To me, conservatism used to imply some respect for rules and the law. You can be against having unnecessary rules, but the rules that exist need to be followed, to the letter. You can’t just change them if things don’t go your way.
With Trump and the modern GOP, any such respect for the rules has totally vanished. Even if it was only a pretense before, even that pretense is now gone. They’ve gone down the authoritarian/autocratic road, where rules are just for the little people, and are merely a tool used to control them, rather than a mechanism by which fairness can be established.
And on some level, the fact that these guys who are breaking and changing the rules are all rich old white guys pisses me off even more. It’s like that dickface kid who got off on the “affluenza” defense, where he was so rich and privileged that he couldn’t be expected to know how to behave.
Fuck that shit so much. If the whole fucking system is set up to benefit you, then you need to be the posterboy for following those rules. You have less excuse than anyone for breaking them.
I feel like we’re getting to the point that there is literally no actual sense of honor or shame shackling these people. They no longer care that what they are doing is unfair. They feel like they are immune to repercussions… and I feel like that’s not going to change unless they start being faced with real repercussions, like fucking serious harm to their persons. Like, at some point we’re going to be back at French Revolution status, as the Guillotine is the only thing that’s going to put the fear of God back in these men… because they don’t fear God any more.
It’s official, @Timex has signed on to team @ArmandoPenblade. Next they’ll be planning trips to McConnell’s grave together!
In all seriousness, though, it’s good that some of this shit the Rs are pulling is convincing at least some of the conservative crowd that they can’t be trusted to uphold fairness and rule of law and all that other stuff they love to spout on the campaign trail. Now we just need a way to get that across to the ones that aren’t as thoughtful as @Timex.
Timex
5459
Well, I’ve always been fairly uncompromising when it came to adherence to rules.
And to be fair, when the rules are bad, the correct response is to change the rules, rather than just break them… but this act by the GOP isn’t about changing the rules because they are bad rules. They’re changing them purely to benefit themselves.
It’s like playing cards, and then declaring that whatever is in your hand is the winning hand.
We need more Rorschach.
Isn’t this exactly what Trump’s been doing since the beginning of the election process? It’s learned behavior.
Timex
5461
Ya, that’s exactly right. Trump said “Fuck the rules”, and now the GOP has learned that… apparently that works.
And they aren’t going to learn otherwise until they suffer serious, permanent consequences.
Like, not even just being thrown out of office, but… like, lose everything you own. Have your children thrown out onto the streets. Have your family utterly destroyed.
That’s what needs to happen to these people, because they need to be made into an example for others. People need to once again fear that lying and cheating results in bad things.
More “ends justify the means” and since I like (I mean really like) violence, violence shall be the means?
Isn’t “do whatever it takes and the fuck rules and norms” part of what’s wrong with the GOP?
Nesrie
5463
Except it didn’t start with Trump. That’s being too generous. This rot has been spreading for awhile.
magnet
5465
Rorschach is the antithesis of “the ends justify the means”, in fact the whole story builds up to his confrontation with those who believe that they do and his unwillingness to compromise when it comes to following the rules.
Right. One side is “rules are for everyone else” and the other side is saying “because you flout the rules, this bad thing should happen.”
Which is why he was a totally law-abiding non-vigilante ;)
Which is really a criticism that can be leveled against pretty much every comics character ever. Which I think was sort of the point.
magnet
5468
He followed rules, which is not the same as following the law. It was a personal code.
Rorschach’s code was actually very simplistic, basically amounting “Evil must be punished.” The point of the ending was that he couldn’t justify ignoring that code even if all agreed if it would lead to a better outcome.
No, all the other heroes in that book thought that overlooking a terrible crime was justified by the benefits to humanity.
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office.
“Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt.
JonRowe
5470
Amen,
and I will truly cherish the day that the president gets to watch the Don Jr. perp walk live on CNN.
(Fox News will be talking about how liberals are ruining Easter now)
Nesrie
5471
Well everyone knows that in order to resurrect thou holy bunny one must color eggs and hurl them hard against large rocks until he emerges to give kids candy everywhere.
Timex
5472
Exactly.
Rorschach doesn’t follow the LAWS, but he absolutely follows his own personal code, without ever compromising, no matter what the personal price he has to pay for it.
At the end, he realizes the logic of not telling the people the truth. He realizes that it’s probably the smart move… but he still refuses to compromise his principles, and lie to the people. He forces Manhattan to kill him, because it’s the only way to stay true to his principles while also letting the world move on to a peaceful future.
The way that Jackie Earle Haley delivers that scene is absolutely awesome too.
People really need to stop calling Republicans “conservatives”. It makes no sense anymore, and it’s misleading. Otherwise, I agree with the point entirely. Decent people don’t support Trump, and therefore decent people don’t support the Republican party, because it’s now entirely synonymous with supporting Trump. It has nothing to do with ideology, and it certainly has nothing to do with conservative principles.
-Tom
